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This is the value of Steve Rogers’ life. He is more soldier than man. He does not ask for their awe or admiration but it is freely given and entirely unearned. He lived a lifetime in suspended animation and they look to him as though he is the second coming but this has been his third coming and it has been the most painful labour yet and he is not the god of this piece because that god is a trickster god. Steve is Pinocchio, waiting for his chance to be a real live boy, or he is some kind of saviour, risen once from a metal box in Brooklyn and risen again from the ice, and no one can ever understand his frozen waste dreams. He is an action figure and he is a relic but he is more than a saint’s heart or a saint’s pinky finger (he is, despite popular opinion, no saint).
It is no wonder that he spends his hours closeted deep in the bowels of this drab building sparring with nothing more than ghosts and shoddily-constructed punching bags. This is the value of his life; hidden away like a shameful secret. He seldom complains because this world, with its neon and its corruption and pollution and sedition and all its indignities; this is not the world for which he fought and for which he fell.
Colonel Fury does his best and Steve respects him; he’ll click his heels together and snap a salute when Fury enters a room and then he’ll dig his heels in and curl his hands into fists because this is not his world. Everyone he loved is dead or in a care home and they do not know him and they are his heroes, crumbled bones and ash and thoughts as fragile as spun glass.
Steve is introduced to new people gradually. The introductions are awkward and hello, my name is and we know who you are, Captain Rogers, sir and everyone has the advantage over him. There was a time when he was so small that Bucky used to say that he might slip through the cracks in the Brooklyn sidewalks and Steve never liked to step on those hairline fractures. Now, he looms and when he walks down corridors, SHIELD employees scuttle ahead of him like frantic, wayward ants. Only Nick Fury and Phil Coulson actually meet his gaze without sympathy or fear until he is introduced to Clint Barton, who waves lazily at him from an unlikely perch on top of a bookcase in Coulson’s office, and to Natasha Romanov, whose tight, economic gestures resonate and remind Steve never to try to understand women. She bares her teeth instead of smiling and Fury places a hand on her arm, as though she needs to be taught restraint.
There is to be a team. They tell him that he is to be the leader. He does not know how to say that it will not end well. Tony Stark rubs him up the wrong way and Steve, disgusted, wonders that he could be the son of his friend. It is only when he stops looking for resemblances to Howard that Tony becomes bearable. His sympathies are exploited when someone leaves a file in his room. He suspects Widow or Hawkeye but he can’t be sure. No matter who’s responsible, Steve sits and reads the photocopied pages about Stark’s incarceration in Afghanistan and his transformation to Iron Man and Steve cannot hate him.
There is an issue, a mission, and the trickster god is defeated and there are chunks of Stuttgart and New York blown all to hell but, at some point, Steve begins to think of this team as his team. They are not like his Commandos; there is not a single military brain amongst them and obedience and orders are dirty words. Everyone knows best and Steve is an icon but they do not believe that he is their hero (and they must become his heroes).
When they emerge from the rubble and the fine tremors leave Steve’s fingers, there is a celebration. They tumble into a Prohibition-style bar in the East Village and Stark asks if Steve feels right at home. It is bad enough that Steve was born two years before Prohibition, and that he remembers it, but no one is remotely shocked that this is his first time inside anything resembling a speakeasy. Steve Rogers has always been upstanding and outstanding and he and Thor remain depressingly sober. He watches this team (his team). He watches as Stark leans against Rhodey, gesturing with a glass, his eyes flickering every which way because nothing gets past Tony Stark, least of all Steve Rogers’ scrutiny. He watches as Romanov and Barton sit side by side on a table top and he watches as Barton’s gaze follows Coulson with all the subtlety of a heat-seeking missile. Steve shifts from foot to foot as he struggles to understand what he think he’s seeing and he thinks of Bucky and speakeasies and yellowing sketchpads, filled with smudged outlines of hands and half-eaten apples and window-frames. Banner isn’t here tonight and Steve wishes he could help him, sometimes, but Steve might be the only man on the planet who cannot conceive what it is to contain near-unfettered rage.
There is a way to help Banner, though, and Steve figures it out in the quiet days after the Loki incident (if something so very nearly apocalyptic can be categorised as such). There is a physiology textbook and he and Banner sit down and Banner tries to explain about the super serum and how it effects every chemical reaction in Steve’s body. Banner does not seem to be jealous of Steve; he is an experiment that did not go wrong. There was no stray radiation. There was only a burnt-out power grid in Brooklyn seventy years ago.
Banner is fascinated, and Stark is, too. They’re still not quite sure how Steve survived being frozen but they tell him about organ transplants and medically-induced hypothermia. They tell him about brown fat and non-shivering thermogenesis, all of which seems to be redundant even though Steve was in hibernation. Banner actually sets up a white board and there are equations and the Krebs cycle and all the places it might have been arrested and Steve’s mind swims because even though he’s an intelligent man, science took a huge leap forward when he was asleep and he’s always been more intuitive than analytical. He knows that his muscle mass has scarcely atrophied and he knows he lost consciousness on impact in the ice but there’s no evidence that he broke any bones or suffered any physical damage. There is nothing to fix, says Stark, wonderingly, even after everything. Banner looks less certain. Everything stopped, he says, and everything started again and it’s like someone pressed the pause button on Captain America.
He wonders if Tony thinks of him in robot terms. Have you tried turning him off and turning him on again? He sits cross-legged on the couch and listens as Banner writes his thoughts in blue and sometimes he makes notes in the margins of his own notepad and idly slaps Clint’s hand when he tries to steal a slice of pizza.
“You don’t get pizza if you‘re not contributing to the conversation,” says Stark.
Barton grins around a mouthful of pizza. “Fucking nerds.” He gestures at Tony (“Blue glowy-thing for a heart”) and at Banner (“Anger management issues in the form of a fucking monster”) and at the ceiling, apparently to encompass Thor (“Alien god with inexplicable fondness for refined sugar”) and then he shrugs. “Seriously, Cap. Just chill and don’t let these guys dissect you, okay?”
Steve could mention the many clauses in his personnel file that state that it’s illegal to draw his blood or otherwise practise vivisection on his person. SHIELD will not entertain the merest possibility of Steve’s genetic material entering the public domain. It’s probably missing Barton’s point, though. Stark follows Barton out of the room, explaining for the thousandth time that he has a heart and it’s a beautiful, shrapnel-free, beating thing and why won’t you let me love you, Hawkeye?
.
Everyone watches Steve but he watches them, too. They have not been thrown together by a shared experience. It’s not like the Commandos, his own, crafted team. It’s not like Bucky, and there is an ache that will never entirely vanish, dull though it has become. This is a band of merry men and woman and they have been assembled with intent. It makes Steve uncomfortable.
He draws Banner, just a pencil sketch on a stray piece of graph paper and Betty steals it and Bruce says that she’s framed it and it’s hard to tell who blushes more. He draws Stark, tired eyes and shoulders slumped as he sits at the breakfast bar, waiting for the glacially slow drip of the coffee maker at six o’clock in the morning. He draws Barton, sitting in a tree on the rooftop terrace, arm hanging loosely by his side as he peers up at the sky and he draws Coulson, emerging from a Quinjet after a five-day mission in a classified location. He draws Romanov, unfolding from an impossible combat position, and he draws Pepper and Darcy and Happy and Jane. He draws Thor and the furrow on his brow as he contemplates the toaster and then he flips through all these faces and shapes and reminds himself that they are his heroes.
There are other faces, too; the ones drawn from imperfect memory and tears spring to his eyes when he can’t remember the curve of Bucky’s smile or the fall of Peggy’s hair and he tells himself that it is frustration because he has surely had time to mourn them now.
Sometimes, Steve wonders that this team, his team, the Avengers don’t get cabin fever but, then again, Banner has perfected the art of self-exile and Stark escapes to Malibu on a whim every other weekend. Romanov and Barton are SHIELD agents, first and foremost, and they go wherever Fury and Coulson send them. It’s only when Steve learns that Thor has gone to the Bifrost site in New Mexico that he realises he’s on his own in the Mansion. At first, it’s liberating and then it’s lonely.
It is difficult for Captain America to explore New York. It’s his home but there’s a Starbucks on nearly every corner and people stop and stare, no matter how low he pulls his baseball cap or how much he slumps, hands in his pockets, nails scratching over lint and a scarcely-used wallet. Captain America is like the Royal Family; he rarely carries cash. He has an iPod, engraved with his address. If lost, please return to SHIELD; that is the story of Steve Rogers’ life. One day, he goes to Brooklyn and runs around Prospect Park and in five years, he will be a hundred and, like any centenarian sitting in a care home, his friends are dead and their children speak a different language and, because he looks young and he is beautiful and strong, no one can see how he struggles. He is surprised that Darcy Lewis meets him at the entrance to the park after he’s run three straight laps. She’s wearing running gear, with a bright pink headband over her ears, and she doesn’t look as exhausted as he’s trying to feel. He’s sweating and she hands him a bottle of water and he doesn’t even think to ask how she knew he was here.
Sometimes, he plays chess with Barton and it shouldn’t surprise him how patient Barton is. They sit at the dining room table where it is quiet and sometimes Coulson joins them, armed with paperwork and a weary smile and it is an acceptable domesticity, with few words and the occasional snort from Coulson that is scarcely more than a flare of nostrils.
“If you think you can do better, Coulson, let’s swap.”
“The day I let you near my reports, Barton, will be a cold day in hell.”
Steve wonders at their easy to-and-fro and he wonders at the faint flush in Barton’s cheeks and then it is check and checkmate and toppling kings.
It is not so lonely, sometimes. On those days and weekends and weeks when everyone is scattered to the four corners of the country or the globe or beyond, Steve gets up early and walks to the Metropolitan Museum. He finds a corner and draws the Greek and Roman sculptures and wonders if Hercules had it any easier. Steve thinks that twelve labours sounds like a pretty sweet deal; he does not know the price of penance when sometimes he forgets to mourn his friends, or he fails to save them, or he does not keep his word. He doesn’t know why he should be seen as perfect when he is as flawed as anyone else.
He sighs and he closes his sketchbook and wanders aimlessly from room to room until Clint Barton emerges from behind the statue of Hercules the Archer, with an easy smile, and they stand side by side and look out over the snow-covered park. Steve’s pretty sure that Hawkeye is supposed to be in France but when Barton suggests that they go home, he doesn’t argue. He’s sick of being a museum exhibit. He’s sick of drawing ancient heroes and wondering if they should be his heroes, too.
He wonders if it’s New York so, one weekend, he goes to London. It’s easily managed because Tony showed him how to use the internet and Pepper showed him how to use the SHIELD-issued credit card. He’s in London in the early hours of Saturday morning and he goes to the British Museum and looks at their heroes and the Rosetta Stone and a great disembodied arm and he thinks of Ozymandias and then Tony is there and Steve’s eyes drift briefly closed (look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair).
Tony trails after him and loiters and has the grace not to look bored as Steve determinedly draws Lapiths and Centaurs and these are not his heroes either.
Steve flies to Russia next. He doesn’t expect to be followed to St Petersburg and the Hermitage is so big that he hopes he might get lost here, icon among so many icons. He’s heard that it would take eleven years to see every exhibit in this place, if one doesn’t linger for longer than a minute. Steve thinks Tony and Clint would take it as a challenge and there is room after room and perhaps he will find his hero here. His sketchpad is tucked under his arm and he meanders through to the Winter Palace and it makes sense that he is frozen, that they are both frozen. The other man’s voice is hoarse. He seems unsurprised to see Steve here but there have been articles enough about Captain America’s fondness for museums and decaying gods.
“I’m supposed to kill you.” There is the faintest hint of an accent. There is the faintest hint of familiarity.
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Captain America – “
Steve cannot deny who he is. He holds up his hands. His sketchpad slithers to the floor and some loose papers float out, incomplete portraits and blank faces and the other man does not move. They are no longer alone, not with a wealth of paper and memories between them but then there is uproar and here is Natasha and the other man calls her Natalia and here is Fury and this is the Winter Soldier. The scuffle is brief and Steve is an innocent bystander and he could be a fragile asthmatic again as he watches Romanov subdue the Winter Soldier who does not put up much of a fight.
He parries a few blows and when Romanov’s thighs are clamped around his head, Steve can hear a choked laugh. “’s not how I’d’ve chosen to celebrate our reunion, Natalia.”
Steve sees a flash of metal and hears a faint grunt as Romanov sedates the Soldier and then all he can do is stoop and pick up his sketchpad. His heart is pounding, the way it never does after exercise. His palms are dry and he has no answers.
There should be a diplomatic incident but SHIELD is very good at what it does and the Winter Soldier is taken into custody and Steve is a national hero once more and he is furious that he was bait and that he has been told nothing. It seems that some details have been omitted universally because Fury is suddenly furious and the Winter Soldier is taken out of SHIELD custody and General Ross is, apparently, to blame.
Steve kicks up a fuss. No one has ever seen anything like it because Captain America is not prone to tantrums but they still won’t tell him where the Winter Soldier is being held. Weeks pass and Fury says that his hands are tied but he does not look pleased. Barton says that if Fury had a nemesis, it would probably be General Ross and Banner says nothing at all. He and Steve watch reality TV shows together and continue to be perplexed at the modern world (and all the while the Soldier waits).
It is Stark to the rescue, of course, with coordinates obtained through shady methods, and Barton drives and says that Coulson’s giving them an hour head-start. Romanov is not immediately involved but she figures that Fury’ll give Coulson an hour head-start and she’ll bring up the rear. Both Steve and Barton wear their field suits. Steve is Captain America and he does not leave men behind. He does not leave this man behind.
The Winter Soldier is being kept in a secure facility in Pennsylvania. The guards don’t stand a chance. The cell is made of some kind of reinforced glass and Steve presses his palm against it. His gesture is mirrored by a metal hand and they face each other, unable to hear a word the other is saying but it doesn’t seem to matter.
Barton arrives, dragging a guard behind him. There’s something about fingerprint scans and retinal scans and it’s less messy than shattered glass. Barton’s grinning like this is all he’s ever wanted in life and he says it’s been a while since he was in the red and, anyway, he’s pretty sure Fury’s on their side in this. The door wheezes open and Barton drops the guard and looks away, scuffing his foot on the ground, as Steve reaches for Bucky and Bucky reaches back, bewildered. Steve’s lips touch Bucky’s temple and Barton clears his throat loudly.
“Coulson’ll be here in five,” he says and Steve nods.
“Bucky,” he says, his voice a quiet murmur. “We’re bringing you home. Back to New York.” And there is no logic here, that they should break Bucky out only to take him back into custody but he will be under SHIELD protection and, more than that, he will be under Steve’s protection.
Bucky is exhausted and pale and he is taken straight to Medical and Steve paces outside until he is allowed to see him. He sits next to Bucky’s hospital bed, his fingers wrapped loosely around Bucky’s wrist and he smiles when Bucky opens his eyes.
“You know who you are?”
Bucky nods.
“You know who I am?”
Bucky smiles. He clears his throat. “You’re looking good for your age, buddy.”
Steve’s pulse is fast and his palms are dry. “Wish I could say the same for you.”
They laugh until Bucky starts to cough and a nurse comes in to glare at Steve (I’d expect this from Agent Barton but not from you, Captain Rogers). Contrite, Steve sits back and takes out his sketchpad. Bucky’s asleep in seconds but Steve has found his hero.